The Journey Begins

The last couple of days have been a blur.  During this past week of class we’ve continued to listen to and appreciate one another’s sermons, even as we’ve worked to refine our ideas about what we want to pursue as a thesis.  I’m feeling not just a little lost.  We’ve been exposed to a variety of methodological models and some unbelievable tools for doing research, but I’m still very much at sea when it comes to defining what I want to be working on for the next three years.  And understandably so.  I’m just beginning, but even so, I realize that first steps are important steps, and I want to get off on the right foot.

My research hunch is that film has something to teach me about effective preaching.  I’m not talking about using film in preaching, but rather the medium itself.  Along with popular music, the movies have become one of the principal ways in which our society and culture communicate.  Movies make a huge impression on people, and sometimes movies even change lives.  That’s where I think the sermon and the film intersect.  Every preacher wants his or her sermon to communicate the love and mercy of Jesus Christ,  just like every movie maker wants his or her film to move the audience to think, feel, laugh, cry, or maybe even approach life in a new way.  There’s something to be learned here, and as I start my reading and research, I’ll be glad to hear whatever insights or resources you have to share.

Painful

I can’t tell you how incredibly painful it is for me to watch myself on video preaching.  I don’t mind watching other people.  Maybe that’s because they look and sound so much better than I do.  I look at myself and think, “Oh.  This is bad.”  My cohort peers don’t think it’s that bad, or at least, they’re kind enough to keep it to themselves.  I know, it’s part of the process.  I wish there were another path, but to improve at anything means being utterly ruthless with yourself.  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be a better preacher.  Although.  There’s a part of me that wishes everyone would say, “Oh, you can’t get any better!”  Oh, but I can, and it’s painful.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’ve been trying to catalog all the changes in theological education since the days when I was a seminary student.  The most obvious changes are in the makeup of the student body.  When I first arrived at Luther Seminary in 1974, the church had at that time only been ordaining women for about 5 years.  I think there was way less than a dozen women in my class when I graduated in 1978.  But now, women are pretty close to parity with men in the total enrollment.  Besides being virtually all male, back in the day, we were almost all white.  We had a few African pastors on campus doing advanced study before returning to the churches in their homeland, but I can only recall one African-American student in my class, and he was Episcopalian.  Luther Seminary continues to educate pastors from around the world, but the student body is much more racially and socially diverse than when I began study.  And that’s especially true in the D. Min. program in which I’m training.  Then, too, when I started seminary, there was really only one track toward ordination, which meant moving to the seminary, spending three years on campus in classes, and one year in parish internship.  That would entail at least four moves in four years.  (Moving to campus, moving to internship site, moving back to campus, then moving to first call at the end of seminary.)  The explosion in communication technology has now made distance learning possible in a way I could never have imagined.  In the coming year I’ll be doing research, staying in touch with students and faculty, submitting sermons, papers, and projects, all online.  It’s a brave new world, and I’m glad to see it.

Peace.

How Edgy?

I preached this morning at First Lutheran Church in Winthrop, MN.  It was quite a contrast from last Sunday when I preached at Trinity Lutheran in Eau Claire, WI.  Trinity is a congregation of about 3000 with an ultra-modern, high-tech worship space that seats about 700.  Winthrop’s First Lutheran is located in corn country about an hour and a half to the west and a little south of Minneapolis.  Its sanctuary is about 120 years old, fabulously maintained, and this morning we had about 80 at worship.  I preached there at the invitation of my friend and colleague Pastor Jim Snyder who’s served there for the past two and a half years as their interim.  This is the first time Jim and I had shared any face time together in the 25 years since he left Texas, where he served the congregations at Shelby and Fayetteville.  He’s one of those friends that I could call at 2 a.m. and say that I need him, and he’d be on the next plane.  And vice versa.  Can you have too many of those kinds of friends?  I didn’t think so.

I preached this morning on the Gerasene demoniac from Luke 8, which is kind of an edgy text.  How many Bible passages feature a naked man running wild in the local cemetery?  And I preached the text in an edgy way.  In the same way that Jesus showed his mastery over the forces of nature in the stilling of the storm (which is the story that immediately precedes the trip to Gerasa), I preached that Jesus is the master of the social forces that can drive a man crazy, but also run a society off the edge of a cliff.

Needless to say, that’s not exactly the conventional reading of this text.  In my sermon I laid out the Scriptural basis for my interpretation, but at the same time, I wondered why I can’t just do a sermon that’s nice and easy and edgeless.  I know I can, and I have, and I do, but there’s a part of me that believes a preacher ought to make me reach and think and give me some hint of the mystery that I can’t fully understand but graciously enfolds me in love and mercy.

That’s a minority opinion.

Peace.

On a Scale of 1-10

There is no absolute scale for the effectiveness of a preacher.  Unlike some sports competitions, there is no universally agreed upon scoring system for whether a sermon is “good” or “bad” or somewhere in between.  That’s because preaching is so highly contextual.  In one setting a sermon might go over like gangbusters, but the same sermon delivered elsewhere might bomb.  A sermon’s worth depends in large measure not only on what you’re saying, but how you’re saying it and to whom.

Truly, the Word of God is the Word of God, but the preacher’s job is to make sure that that Word gets heard.  If you come out of the preacher’s box breathing fire and throwing brickbats, your hearers are likely to shut you out and stop up their ears even if they continue to sit there politely and at the end of the service say, “Good sermon.”  Years ago, the chip on my shoulder was just a little bit bigger than it is now, and one Sunday I preached what I thought was a scorcher.  At the end of the service, I marched to the back of the church ready to catch hellfire and brimstone, and the first thing I heard was, “You really gave it to ‘em today, Pastor!”  Not gave it to me, not gave it to us, but gave it to them.  I’m still trying to unpack that lesson.

Peace.

Miracle

I just completed my sermon for this coming Sunday, and I have to say, even after all these years, it still feels like a miracle that once more I have a word for the people of God.  I just hope it bears some resemblance to the Word of Life.

Toughening Up the Ears

Back in my seminary days, I had a friend invite me out to play handball with him.  I’d never played, but he said it was easy and he had a spare glove.  I did a lot a stumbling around that day, but it was good fun.  Until the next morning.  That’s when I woke up with my right hand feeling like a piece of raw meant duct-taped to the end of my arm.  My friend had told me that my hand might sting, not that my hand would feel like it had gone through a wood chipper.  Little did I realize that I had been playing handball with little baby hands.

My ears feel sort of like my hand did after that first time out on the court.  For most of the last 10 days I’ve been listening to 4-5 sermons a day.  Even over the internet I can feel some of you wincing.  “Four to five sermons a day!”  Bear in mind, I am a professional sermon giver, but I have new appreciation for the wear and tear on the ears after an afternoon of sermonizing.  Believe me, the words “easy listening” are taking on a whole new meaning.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m listening to the best of the best of the church’s preachers, but careful listening is every bit as taxing on the ears as that hard little rubber pill was on my hand so many years back.  I’m going to remember that the next time I start making demands on your ears.

Peace.

beat, Beat, BEAT

Yes, I am tired. It’s a good tired, but it’s also been a very intense day.  A good intense, but I feel a little like my head’s going to explode.  This morning we covered chapters 2-7 in the Book of Revelation, and this afternoon we heard four different sermons on Revelation texts.  Even lunch was busy, as we met over sandwiches while being instructed in the use of digital recorders for posting our sermons to “My Luther Net.”  I finished off the day with a couple of hours in the library to prepare my sermon for this coming Sunday at my friend Jim Snyder’s church in Winthrop, MN.  I also spent some time on the phone with Dottie Herrmann as she mourns the death of her father, while also touching base with Pastor Walt as he prepares to preside at graveside services for our brother in Christ Sid Thompson.

Walt’s been on my mind as we’ve been working our way through Revelation.  Every couple of minutes I think, “Walt would love this!”  And of course, he would. I’ll have lots to share with him when I get back.

Again, I know I couldn’t be doing this without the help of so many.  Lift up Walt, Kandi, Kathy, and Janet, and three cheers for our council that’s meeting tonight.

Peace.

Studies in Passion

When I was a kid, passion was a term most often associated with romance novels. Today the word is less about true love and more about TRUE LOVE, as in complete engagement, as in throwing your heart and mind into whatever or whoever it is that you love and cherish.  Bearing that definition in mind, I was honored to spend the better part of today with two very passionate people.  The first is Dr. Craig Koester, our instructor for the class “Preaching the Book of Revelation.”  From the moment he started class, you could tell that his involvement with Revelation and the Word of God as a whole is not just a job, but a passion.  He doesn’t expect everybody to feel about the last book of the Bible the way he does, but he teaches in a way that opens the door for you to engage this Word just as deeply as he has and does.

My second study in passion for today was David Doppenberg.  I was David’s internship supervisor way back when and this afternoon he picked me up from seminary after our class time.  He’s now the senior pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Coon Rapids, MN, a Minneapolis suburb, and after dinner he took me by his church to give me a tour of their new facilities.  The new space was beautifully designed and laid out, but what struck me was how totally immersed he was in his ministry to his church and family and whole community.  We hadn’t seen one another for a long time, but after a little catching up, we were in deep conversation on how best to be church in the 21st century.  David’s passion for his faith and his people was just amazing.

Sometimes I wonder.  About the church, about what the future holds, about reaching people who have never heard.  But then I spend a day with two men like Craig and David, and the tasks don’t seem so daunting.

Peace.

Everywhere You Go

I preached this morning at Trinity Lutheran in Eau Claire, WI, and not surprisingly, I met a lot of wonderful people.  That’s the amazing thing about working and traveling around in the church.  Everywhere you go there are people who will reach out with a smile and a greeting and a helping hand.  Everywhere you go there are people doing extraordinary things in ordinary ways to help lift a preacher and let the Word of God loose in the world.  After my friend and fellow pastor Kurt Jacobson drove me back to my St. Paul dorm room, I got on the phone and called Vic Fair to thank him for preaching for me this morning at Christ.  I’m so grateful for Vic’s willingness to share his gifts and serve Christ with his head, and heart, and hands.  He’s another one of those people you meet “everywhere you go” in the Body of Christ. Praise God!

Tomorrow I begin a new class on “Preaching the Book of Revelation.”  The reading list for this course has been very helpful and fascinating.  One of our preparatory exercises was to read through the Book of Revelation in one sitting and try to imagine that we were hearing/reading it for the first time.  You can’t entirely imagine away a lifetime of exposure to Revelation, but as I tried, it occurred to me that on first hearing, I don’t think you would ever conclude that John of Patmos was writing a blueprint or a time line for the end of the world. Unfortunately, that understanding of Revelation has been so widely popularized in books and movies that we read those assumptions into the text.  The more I read Revelation for what it actually says, the more I’m convinced that it’s the perfect book to end the Bible.

Peace.